JULY 2016 | VOLUME 17 | NUMBER 6

WHO YOU GONNA CALL MELISSA MCCARTHY TALKS GHOSTBUSTERS

Inside CHRIS PINE MATT DAMON

PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 41619533

ZAC EFRON AND ADAM DEVINE ON HAWAII, IMPROV AND THEIR NEW MOVIE,PAGE 22

CONTENTS JULY 2016 | VOL 17 | Nº06

COVER STORY

40 SPIRITED REBOOT We’re not going to write anything here about how the stars of the new Ghostbusters movie are all women. We don’t really care, and neither does lead buster Melissa McCarthy. What matters to her is making a fun, and funny, movie. So think four women headlining the remake of a classic comedy is a big deal? Get over it BY BOB STRAUSS REGULARS

4 EDITOR’S NOTE 6 SNAPS 8 IN BRIEF 12 ALL DRESSED UP 14 SPOTLIGHT CANADA 16 IN THEATRES 44 CASTING CALL 46 RETURN ENGAGEMENT 48 CINEPLEX STORE 50 FINALLY…

FEATURES TKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTKTK BY PHOTO

22 DOUBLE TROUBLE 28 TREK TALK 32 RE-BOURNE 36 BREAKING BAD Zac Efron and Adam DeVine As he helms the Enterprise for Nearly a decade after he Bad Moms star Kristen Bell cordially invite you to enjoy the third time, Chris Pine, star appeared in his last Bourne on her cathartic new comedy their wedding-disaster of Star Trek Beyond, explains movie Matt Damon returns about mothers who lose it, flick,Mike and Dave Need why the laughs are his for a fourth film, simply titled and why she and her co-stars Wedding Dates favourite part of the franchise Jason Bourne. Why now? could relate BY MELISSA SHEASGREEN BY BOB STRAUSS BY COLIN COVERT BY INGRID RANDOJA

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 3 EDITOR’S NOTE

PUBLISHER SALAH BACHIR

EDITOR MARNI WEISZ DEPUTY EDITOR INGRID RANDOJA GRAPHIC DESIGNERS KATIE CRANE, LUCINDA WALLACE VICE PRESIDENT, PRODUCTION SHEILA GREGORY

CONTRIBUTORS COLIN COVERT, MELISSA SHEASGREEN, BOB STRAUSS

ADVERTISING SALES FOR CINEPLEX MAGAZINE AND LE MAGAZINE CINEPLEX IS HANDLED BY CINEPLEX MEDIA.

HEAD OFFICE 416.539.8800 SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, SALES LORI LEGAULT (EXT. 5242) VICE PRESIDENT ROBERT BROWN (EXT. 5232) VICE PRESIDENT, SALES JOHN TSIRLIS (EXT. 5237) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SALES GIULIO FAZZOLARI (EXT. 5254) ACCOUNT MANAGERS CORY ATKINS (EXT. 5257) JASON BAUER (EXT. 5233) ZACH BEACH (EXT. 5269) BRENDAN DEVINE (EXT. 5280) SHEREE KYTE (EXT. 5245) BETH LEVERTY (EXT. 5285) SKETCHY ZANDRA MACINNIS (EXT. 5281) HEATHER MARSHALL (EXT. 5290) SARAH MILLS (EXT. 5292) JENNA PATERSON (EXT. 5243) JULIAN PIEKE (EXT. 5216) BRETT POSCHMANN (EXT. 5287) CONNECTION TANYA STEVENS (EXT. 5271) LESLEY TAYLOR (EXT. 5266) ED VILLA (EXT. 5239) ow predictable. If you’d asked me a couple of years ago who would be cast to take LORELEI VON HEYMANN (EXT. 5249) DIRECTOR, MEDIA OPERATIONS the places of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, the late Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson in a CATHY PROWSE (EXT. 5223) MANAGER, THEATRICAL PROGRAMMING reboot of 1984’s Ghostbusters I’m pretty sure I would’ve come up with Kristen Wiig, DEBI KINGSTON (EXT. 5259)

Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Melissa McCarthy. HALIFAX 902.401.8152 ACCOUNT MANAGER Maybe not on the first guess, but second or third for sure. C’mon. They didn’t exactly CRAIG JACKSON

go out on a limb here, did they? QUEBEC 514.868.0005 SALES DIRECTOR, EASTERN CANADA I know many were shocked by the idea that four women would replace four men in the beloved comedy GEORGE GOULAKOS (EXT. 225) ACCOUNT MANAGERS franchise, while others found it novel and refreshing. But if you dig a little deeper you’ll find a similarity DAVE CAMERON (EXT. 224) between the new and old cast members that’s more important than their differing reproductive organs. MARTINE MÉNARD (EXT. 222) OTTAWA 844.870.1112 Saturday Night Live. ACCOUNT MANAGER Based on an idea by SNL alum Aykroyd, who also played Dr. Ray Stantz alongside fellow SNL icon Murray NICOLE BEAUDIN WATERLOO 519.725.3733 as Dr. Peter Venkman, the original Ghostbusters could be considered an unofficial Saturday Night Live movie. ACCOUNT MANAGER You may not realize this, but Aykroyd wrote Murray’s part for SNL great John Belushi. Unfortunately, HEATHER BOYD MANITOBA/ Belushi died of a drug overdose before the film went into production. Aykroyd also wrote a part for SASKATCHEWAN 204.396.3044 ACCOUNT MANAGER Eddie Murphy, who was SNL’s biggest star at the time. Murphy’s tenure on the ground-breaking sketch-com MORGAN COMRIE

show came to an end the same year Ghostbusters came out. That was also the year Beverly Hills Cop hit CALGARY 403.264.4420 ACCOUNT MANAGER theatres, and it was scheduling conflicts between the two films that forced Murphy to say no to Ghostbusters. KEVIN LEAHY

Of course Ramis, who played the third Ghostbuster, Dr. Egon Spengler, came from Saturday Night Live’s EDMONTON 780.919.3011 ACCOUNT MANAGER spiritual sketch-com sister, Canada’s SCTV, while the fourth Ghostbuster, Ernie Hudson — he played BARB KITZAN Winston Zeddmore — was the only Ghostbuster who’d never been on a sketch-com series. (Ramis’s SCTV BRITISH COLUMBIA 604.689.3068 ACCOUNT MANAGER co-star Rick Moranis played geeky accountant Louis Tully, a role written for John Candy, also of SCTV, MATT WATSON who wouldn’t commit to the project but did show up in Ray Parker Jr.’s video for the “Ghostbusters” song.) SPECIAL THANKS MATHIEU CHANTELOIS, ELLIS JACOB, Now look at this month’s re-do. Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones all found fame on PAT MARSHALL, DAN MCGRATH, Saturday Night Live, the latter two are still going strong on the New York-based mainstay of weekend ÉDITH VALLIÈRES Cineplex Magazine™ is published 12 times a year television. And it’s no stretch to say Wiig and McKinnon are among the strongest cast members SNL has by Cineplex Entertainment. Subscriptions are $34.50 ($30 + HST) a year in Canada, $45 a year in seen in the past decade, as Aykroyd and Murray were in the late 1970s. the U.S. and $55 a year overseas. Single copies are $3. Back issues are $6. All subscription inquiries, All of this, naturally, makes McCarthy not the Peter Venkman of the new cast as many have anointed her, back issue requests and letters to the editor should be directed to Cineplex Magazine at 102 Atlantic Ave., but the Winston Zeddmore. Like Ernie Hudson, she’s the only cast member who has never held down a Toronto, ON, M6K 1X9; or 416.539.8800; or [email protected] regular job on a sketch-com series. We’re not too worried about her ability to keep up, though. Along with Publications Mail Agreement No. 41619533. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Wiig, McCarthy has been one of the strongest forces in bringing women to the forefront of big-screen Cineplex Magazine, 102 Atlantic Ave., comedies in the past five years. Both starred in 2011’s Bridesmaids, the film that gave Hollywood the slap in Toronto, ON., M6K 1X9 750,000 copies of Cineplex Magazine are distributed through the face it needed to realize that X and Y chromosomes do not determine the quality of one’s comic timing. Cineplex Entertainment, The Globe and Mail, and other outlets. Cineplex Magazine is not responsible for the return of unsolicited In “They Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts,” page 40, Melissa McCarthy explains what she thinks is, and isn’t, manuscripts, artwork or other materials. No material in this magazine may be reprinted without the express written consent important when it comes to bringing Ghostbusters back to life. of the publisher. © Cineplex Entertainment 2016. Elsewhere in this issue we have interviews with Matt Damon for Jason Bourne (page 32), Chris Pine for Star Trek Beyond (page 28), Zac Efron and Adam DeVine for Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (page 22) and Kristen Bell, another funny woman, for Bad Moms (page 36). n MARNI WEISZ, EDITOR Our text pages are 4 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016

SNAPS

JEDI HAND JIVE Mark Hamill can’t hide his excitement at the Belfast International Airport. He’s on his way to Malin Head, the most northerly point of Ireland, to shoot Star Wars: Episode VIII. PHOTO BY CHARLES MCQUILLAN/GETTY

MATURE POSTER MOORE BOY Julianne Moore is Ryan Gosling spots transformed into someone he knows at a senior citizen on the Hollywood premiere the New York set of of The Nice Guys. director Todd Haynes’ PHOTO BY ALBERT L. ORTEGA/GETTY latest, Wonderstruck. PHOTO BY ZELIG SHAUL/KEYSTONE

6 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016 SIGNATURE MOVE Lupita Nyong’o takes time out from the Broadway run of Eclipsed to sign her caricature at Sardi’s. She’s earned rave reviews for her performance as a teen caught up in Liberia’s civil war. PHOTO BY ROMMEL DEMANO/GETTY

BALDWIN’S DARK SIDE We always knew Alec Baldwin sympathized with the dark side. Here the actor cuddles up to Darth Vader at the New York Philharmonic’s Spring Gala, “A John Williams Celebration.” PHOTO BY BRENT N. CLARKE/GETTY

HAVANA VIN Vin Diesel is in Havana, Cuba, to take in the Chanel fashion show that stretched down the city’s Paseo del Prado boulevard. PHOTO BY ADALBERTO ROQUE/GETTY

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 7 Ellen IN BRIEF Page

On Home Turf:

FLATLINERS HUNT/GETTY NICHOLAS BY PHOTO MARK RYLANCE PHOTO BY JUSTIN TALLIS/GETTY JUSTIN BY PHOTO MARK RYLANCE Ellen Page is coming home this summer. Sort of. The Halifax native will spend this month and next a few provinces away in Toronto shooting a remake of FRIENDLY, AND Flatliners. The original film came The digital Mark Rylance with out in 1990 with Julia co-star Ruby Barnhill in The BFG. Roberts, Kevin Bacon, INSET: Mark Ryance FAMILIAR? William Baldwin, Oliver Platt and Kiefer Sutherland hink you recognize With the magic of motion- Cannes Film Festival, where as med-school students the Big Friendly Giant capture technology, Rylance’s the movie had its premiere. experimenting with in this still from director gentle face, and countenance, “And sometimes there near-death experiences. Steven Spielberg’s fantasy were transferred into the film’s aren’t props, and a lot of The remake sees Mexican filmThe BFG? He looks so titular, animated giant. people standing around, and actor Diego Luna (Elysium), familiar, yet that face is made Fortunately, Rylance was you have to use Brit James Norton more of pixels than pores. able to draw on familiar your imagi- (TV’s Happy Valley), It’s Mark Rylance, the territory during the unfamiliar nation.” American Kiersey Clemons British stage and screen actor process. —MW (Neighbors 2: Sorority who Spielberg turned into an “For me, it was not unlike Rising) and Page’s fellow Oscar winner by casting him being in a rehearsal room of Canadian Nina Dobrev as Soviet spy Rudolf Abel a theatre play, before you go (TV’s The Vampire in the 2015 Cold War thriller onto the set,” Rylance told a Diaries) rounding out Bridge of Spies. room full of reporters at the the cast. —MW THE ART OF FILM

New York illustrator Josh Mirman discovered calligrams — a phrase or poem in which words are arranged to reflect their meaning — via the psychedelic posters of the 1960s and ’70s. “It took years to figure out how to make it work just right, and by 2010, it clicked,” he says. “It is a tiring and long process, my calligrams all drawn by hand, but I feel it’s rewarding. Like completing a jigsaw puzzle, seeing everything form into one big item.” Here you see Mirman’s take on Harold Ramis from the original Ghostbusters and a mashup of two Michael Keaton/Tim Burton characters, Beetlejuice and Batman. See more at joshmirman.com. —MW

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From left: Ethan Hawke, Helen Mirren and Anne Hathaway

DRONEON

The ethical implications of military drones are proving fertile ground for Hollywood, and it’s no wonder. The decision to drop a bomb from an unmanned aircraft creates the type of moral quandary that film finds so irresistible. In 2014’s Good Kill, Ethan Hawke was a U.S. Air Force pilot whose job was to sit in a metal box in the Nevada desert and remotely fly a drone over the Middle East, dropping bombs GONE on U.S. targets. Last year Helen Mirren played a British FISHIN’ colonel who commanded a drone pilot to fire a missile on a Oscar-winning target that included both terrorists and innocent civilians. actor Adrien Brody Even this year’s London Has Fallen started with a drone strike (The Pianist) is also a that sought to kill a terrorist, but hit only his family. pretty good painter. Now reports are Anne Hathaway is turning Grounded Here he shows off — a one-woman play in which she starred last year — into a the works in his fish- film. The plot is very similar toGood Kill, but with a female themed exhibition fighter pilot opting for the relatively safe confines of a “Hooked,” which was Nevada Air Force base drone operation after she becomes presented as part of pregnant. —MW Art New York. PHOTO BY MIREYA ACIERTO/GETTY MIREYA BY PHOTO

Quote Unquote

The foundation of the story is love. We are what we love, I am what I give, what I learn from others and from life.

—VIGGO MORTENSEN ON CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

10 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016 Emma Bunton, centre, flanked by Jennifer Saunders (left) and ABSOLUTELY Joanna Lumley (right) STUFFED

Looking at the list of cameos in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, you have to wonder how much screen time is left for stars Joanna Lumley (Patsy) and Jennifer Saunders (Edina). The ladies lined up more than 60 stars and semi-stars to populate their big-screen flick, which follows Patsy and Edina to the South of France where they hide out after Patsy accidentally knocks Kate Moss (cameo #1) off a ledge at a party. Keep your eyes peeled for Emma Bunton (a.k.a. Baby Spice), Gwendoline Christie, Rebel Wilson, Jon Hamm, Joan Collins, Dame Edna, Sadie Frost, Stella McCartney, Lily Cole, Cara Delevingne, Poppy Delevingne, Perez Hilton, Jerry Hall, Ruby Wax, Jean-Paul Gaultier and a steady stream of other European musicians, models and socialites. —MW Tristan und Isolde’s Nina Stemme PHOTO BY KRISTIAN SCHULLER/METROPOLITAN OPERA SCHULLER/METROPOLITAN KRISTIAN BY PHOTO WHO IS GET YOUR MET TIX EYEBALL Tickets for the Met Opera’s 2016-2017 Season at Cineplex theatres go on sale this month — for SCENE and Met GUY members on July 14th and for Big stars Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot? Robbie everyone else on July 22nd. may be getting most of the attention as the Here’s this year’s lineup, go antiheroes of next month’s Suicide Squad, but we’re to Cineplex.com/Events for most fascinated with this giant eyeball character. dates and times. Eyeball guy (or gal, who knows?) appears briefly Tristan und Isolde (Wagner) in the film’s trailer and is already on display as part of Don Giovani (Mozart) the Suicide Squad section of “DC Universe: The Exhibit” L’Amour de Loin (Saariaho) at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. Nabucco (Verdi) He looks a lot like the comic-book character The Orb, Roméo et Juliette (Gounod) but that’s not possible. The Orb lived Rusalka (Dvoˇrák) in the Marvel Universe as part of La Traviata (Verdi) Ghost Rider’s world. Idomeneo (Mozart) All signs point to Eyeball guy being Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky) one of The Joker’s henchman. We’ll find Der Rosenkavalier (Strauss)

out for sure on August 5th. —MW ORTEGA/GETTY L. ALBERT BY PHOTO

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 11 LLA DRESSED UP JENNIFER EMMA DAVE LAWRENCE WATSON FRANCO In London, England, for a fan At the White House Correspondents’ In Westwood, California, screening of X-Men: Apocalypse. Dinner Pre-Party in Washington, D.C. for the premiere of PHOTO BY KARWAI TANG/GETTY PHOTO BY NICHOLAS HUNT/GETTY Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. PHOTO BY ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/GETTY

12 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016 KIRSTEN NAOMI JARED DUNST WATTS LETO At the Cannes premiere In New York City for the In New York City for the of Café Society. Costume Institute Gala. Costume Institute Gala. PHOTO BY DOMINIQUE CHARRIAU/GETTY PHOTO BY GEORGE PIMENTEL/GETTY PHOTO BY JOHN SHEARER/GETTY

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 13 SPOTLIGHT CANADA

onnor Jessup didn’t want to disappoint his director. The Toronto actor plays Oscar, a gay teen, in director Stephen Dunn’s acclaimed first featureCloset Monster. Oscar lives in Newfoundland with his unhappily divorced father (Aaron Abrams) and dreams of leaving home to become a movie makeup artist. When he was a boy Oscar witnessed a violent gay hate crime that scarred him. Throw in living with a homophobic dad and it’s no wonder Oscar has become a closeted teenager struggling with his sexuality. “Stephen Dunn, this is his first feature, it’s very personal to him,” says the 22-year-old actor on the line from L.A. where he’s doing press for the second season of TV’s American Crime in which he plays another anguished teen, Taylor Blaine. “The film’s not autobiographical, but there are a lot of elements that are very close to his heart, so I was inspired by Stephen and didn’t want to disappoint him.” Jessup is all about taking on big challenges. While focusing on his acting career, which includes five seasons on TV’sFalling Skies, he’s also written and directed three short films, the first when he was just 16. A life behind the camera could turn out to be his true calling. “I’ve directed a few shorts, so I’ve probably been a director on set for a total of 15 days in my life, and I’ve been an actor on set for hundreds of days in my life,” he says. “So maybe the directing is like that shiny new thing and that’s part of the appeal, but I will say that it’s writing and directing where CLOSET my mind wanders to when I can’t sleep at night.” MONSTER —INGRID RANDOJA HITS THEATRES TH

JULY 8 BEN MILLER BY PHOTO

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IN T HEAT RES JULY 1 THE BFG Director Steven Spielberg catered to adult audiences with his past two filmsLincoln and Bridge of Spies, but the moviemaker returns to family entertainment with this fantasy film based on the book by Roald Dahl. A little girl (Ruby Barnhill), the Queen of England (Penelope Wilton) and a Big Friendly Giant (Oscar winner Mark Rylance) team up to stop a group of nasty man-eating giants.

Ewan McGregor and Naomie Harris in Our Kind of Traitor

OUR KIND THE PURGE: OF TRAITOR ELECTION YEAR The latest John le Carré The third film in this franchise (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) spy marries gore with politics THE LEGEND OF TARZAN novel to hit the big screen as a popular U.S. senator Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) has left the stars Ewan McGregor and (Elizabeth Mitchell) proposes jungle behind for a gentrified life in the Naomie Harris as an English an end to the nation’s annual English countryside with wife Jane couple that gets mixed up legal bloodbath. This irks (Margot Robbie). But when he agrees to with a Russian mafia money high-powered opponents return to the Congo as a trade emissary a launderer (Stellan Skarsgård) who send a squad to take nefarious Belgian colonel (Christoph Waltz) who wants them to broker a her out when the latest kidnaps Jane in order to lure the famed deal with MI6 so he can defect. Purge begins. King of the Jungle into a trap. CONTINUED

16 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016

JULY 8 EAT THAT CLOSET QUESTION: MONSTER FRANK ZAPPA IN Set in Newfoundland, this HIS OWN WORDS Canadian coming-of-age By piecing together archived drama written and directed interviews with Frank Zappa by Stephen Dunn stars and footage from his Connor Jessup as a closeted concerts, German filmmaker gay teen who’s haunted by a Thorsten Schütte allows gay bashing he witnessed as Zappa himself to explain his a child. See Connor Jessup views on his music and life. interview page 14.

THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS Max the terrier (Louis C.K.) loves hanging out with other pets while his human owner Katie (Ellie Kemper) is at work. However, Max’s comfortable existence is threatened when Katie brings home the oversized MIKE AND DAVE Duke (Eric Stonestreet) NEED WEDDING DATES who gets them lost in Brothers Mike (Adam DeVine) and Dave (Zac Efron) have New York City. Listen for a way of causing havoc at family gatherings when they Kevin Hart as mentally arrive solo, so they’re instructed to bring dates to their disturbed bunny Snowball, sister’s (Sugar Lyn Beard) wedding in Hawaii. They choose Lake Bell as obese kitty seemingly nice girls Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice Chloe and Albert Brooks as (Anna Kendrick), who in fact are female hellions. Tiberius the hawk. See Zac Efron and Adam DeVine interview, page 22.

TULIP FEVER Tulip Fever’s JULY 15 Alicia Vikander This heady love story was actually filmed two years ago and is only now hitting screens. Set in 17th-century Amsterdam, it stars Alicia Vikander as the unhappy wife of a wealthy merchant (Christoph Waltz) who falls in love with the artist (Dane DeHaan) commissioned to paint the couple’s portrait. GHOSTBUSTERS Girls just wanna have fun! Hollywood sees the feminist light and casts four funny ladies — Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones — in this reboot that finds the team (along with their personal assistant Chris Hemsworth) ridding Manhattan of supernatural creatures. See Melissa McCarthy interview, page 40.

18 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016 JULY 22

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS: THE MOVIE Yes sweetie it’s true, hard-partying fashionistas Eddy (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley) finally get their own movie 24 years after debuting on BBC TV. After Eddy accidentally pushes Kate Moss into the Thames (seemingly to her demise), Eddy and Patsy hightail it to the South of France where they plan to scam their way into lives of luxury.

CAFÉ SOCIETY Writer/director Woody Allen’s latest pic is set in 1930s Hollywood where ambitious New Yorker Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) arrives to work with his high-powered uncle Phil (Steve Carell), an agent, and finds himself falling for Phil’s secretary and former film ingénue, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). CAPTAIN FANTASTIC The utopian-minded Ben (Viggo Mortensen) LIGHTS OUT and his wife Leslie (Trin Miller) are raising An evil spirit that only their six kids in the wilderness away from appears when the lights go society. But when Leslie dies, the family out terrorizes a woman returns to the city for the funeral and Leslie’s (Maria Bello) and her two kids parents (Frank Langella, Ann Dowd) decide (Teresa Palmer and Gabriel they want to raise the brood themselves. Bateman). CONTINUED

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 19 JULY 22 CINEPLEX EVENTS

STAR TREK FAMILY FAVOURITES BEYOND PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE With all the Star Wars hoopla SAT., JULY 2 it’s easy to forget about SESAME STREET: that other massive sci-fi FOLLOW THAT BIRD franchise. Director Justin Lin SAT., JULY 9 (Fast & Furious 6) replaced ODD SQUAD SAT., JULY 16 J.J. Abrams, who helmed A.C.O.R.N.S. the first twoStar Trek films, SAT., JULY 23 and Simon Pegg (Scotty) WILLY WONKA AND ICE AGE: COLLISION COURSE co-wrote the screenplay that THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY The fifthIce Age pic finds Scrat blasting off into finds Captain Kirk Chris( Pine) SAT., JULY 30 space and setting off a cosmic reaction that sends and the rest of the crew of killer asteroids hurtling toward Earth. It’s up to the U.S.S. Enterprise stranded SENSORY FRIENDLY Manny (Ray Romano), Sid (John Leguizamo), on an alien planet and SCREENINGS FINDING DORY Diego (Denis Leary) and the rest of the crew to dealing with a nasty villain SAT., JULY 2 stop the asteroids before it’s too late. (Idris Elba). See Chris Pine interview, page 28. BRANAGH THEATRE LIVE ROMEO AND JULIET THURS., JULY 7 JULY 29 JASON BOURNE Director Paul Greengrass THE METROPOLITAN OPERA and star Matt Damon look L’ELISIR D’AMORE to recreate the magic (DONIZETTI) that made The Bourne ENCORES: SAT., JULY 9; Supremacy and The Bourne WED., JULY 13 Ultimatum such stellar LA BOHÈME (PUCCINI) action flicks. In this fourth ENCORES: SAT., JULY 16; film of the series, Bourne WED., JULY 20 is living a violent, lost life CLASSIC FILM SERIES when he’s drawn back to the A PLACE IN THE SUN CIA and uncovers the truth SUN., JULY 10; WED., JULY 20; about his past. Co-starring MON., JULY 25 Alicia Vikander, Tommy Lee Jones and Julia Stiles. IN THE GALLERY See Matt Damon interview, BOWIE IS page 32. THURS., JULY 21; SUN., JULY 24

NATIONAL THEATRE From left: Kristen Bell, THE AUDIENCE and ENCORES: SAT., JULY 23; in Bad Moms WED., JULY 27

BAD MOMS ANIME Three suburban moms — RWBY VOLUME 2 Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and WED., JULY 27 Kathryn Hahn — take a walk on GO TO the wild side when they rebel CINEPLEX.COM/EVENTS against a group of “perfect FOR PARTICIPATING moms” (led by Christina THEATRES, TIMES AND Applegate). See Kristen Bell TO BUY TICKETS interview, page 36. SHOWTIMES ONLINE AT CINEPLEX.COM ALL RELEASE DATES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE

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O,Brothers

Adam DeVine as Mike (left) and Zac Efron as Dave in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates Zac Efron and Adam DeVine walk into a dressing room backstage at CinemaCon, ready to talk about their new film, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. Efron fixes his hair before stepping in front of the camera. DeVine makes fun of him. Yup, these guys have fun with each other. DeVine (TV’s Modern Family and Workaholics) plays Brothers Mike, and Efron (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising) is Dave in the comedy about two brothers who have a history of coming to What could go wrong when family events solo, and ruining them with stunts that inevitably a couple of party-animal go haywire. Told that they must bring dates to their sister’s brothers unwittingly hook up destination wedding in Hawaii, the brothers go on a TV talk with a couple of hell-raising show to search for a couple of nice, well-behaved ladies. women for their sweet Unfortunately, a couple of not-so-nice, not-so-well-behaved sister’s destination wedding? ladies, Alice (Anna Kendrick) and Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza), see Zac Efron and Adam DeVine it as an opportunity to get a free trip to Hawaii, pretend to be prepare us for the mayhem demure until it’s too late, and then hilarity ensues. of Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates n BY MELISSA SHEASGREEN What kind of movie is this? DEVINE: “It’s a super fun movie. It’s like that cool type of movie where you can go with your guy friends, or if you’re a group of girls, which we’re not so I can’t relate, but they can go together.” EFRON: “We’ve heard from them.” DEVINE: “Or you can go as a group. So it’s not like a movie you would feel uncomfortable taking your girlfriend to, or going with just a pack of guys. You can go in any conglomeration that you deem fit.”

So everyone can see this movie, that’s what you’re saying, right? DEVINE: “Oh, is that, is that a shorter way to say that? Okay, okay, you’re good at this.”

Your counterparts in this movie, Aubrey and Anna, is it fair to say that you’re outdone by them, or do your characters have some kick in them too? DEVINE: “I think we’ve got a little kick. Well, I think my character doesn’t want to lose and sort of spins out of control and loses his mind about halfway through the movie, so it’s really hard for him. Zac’s character Dave is trying to find peace.” EFRON: “Yeah we recently ran an alcohol distribution company together. So I’ve very much been his kind of wingman for all this, his Iceman. Not Iceman. Goose? Goose. That’s my [Top Gun] reference.” DEVINE: “I’m Maverick in this situation.” EFRON: “So over the course of the movie the girls sort of keep just outwitting us and outsmarting us. [Mike] progressively loses his, kind of, bearings.” DEVINE: “His Maverick-esque cool.” EFRON: “His Mavericky-ness, yeah. And I kind of come in to the rescue and kind of boost him back up and we end up, maybe we save the day and maybe we don’t.” DEVINE: “Maybe. I guess you’ve got to find out.” EFRON: “Hopefully Goose doesn’t die.” CONTINUED

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 23 MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES HITS THEATRES JULY 8TH

Go to CINEPLEX.COM/ BESTWORSTDATES for the best, and worst, first dates on film

The fun-loving foursome, from left: Aubrey Plaza, Anna Kendrick, Adam DeVine and Zac Efron

DEVINE: “Tune in because really it’s a cliffhanger. You all have to tune in so we can make the second one.” EFRON: “Yeah, please.” DEVINE: “This is the first Fox is hearing about this, ‘We’re doing a second one!’”

Is it fair to say that you’re still looking for wedding dates at the end of this movie? DEVINE: “You’ve got to stick around and then watch the second movie, which we’re definitely making, right?”

What was it like just coming to set every day and hanging out? DEVINE: “Szymanski, Jake Szymanski, our director.” You guys look like you have a lot of fun together. EFRON: “ Ye s .” DEVINE: “It was fun!” DEVINE: “Not like a [random] guy named Jake who was like, ‘I don’t EFRON: “I mean we were shooting in Hawaii so that part was know, maybe this idea!’ Like the director of our movie. Yeah, and he awesome. We genuinely wanted to get to work every day to film, to would like throw ideas at us and we’d take them and we’d run…. You wrap, to go surfing at night, and then do it all over again.” improv so much that when I watched the movie I was like, ‘I don’t DEVINE: “What was cool is like there was never a kind of a snoozer remember saying any of that.’ Because you say so much, you keep like scene, every scene was fun to do and you’re with fun people like Zac talking and talking and talking that, like, you don’t remember what or Anna and Aubrey…. And when you weren’t shooting and having you said six minutes ago and then that’s what they end up using.” a ton of fun you were like jumping off waterfalls, like off cliffs into lagoons, and swimming with sharks, and trying to surf, and hurting What do you think will surprise audiences most about yourself doing so.” Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates? DEVINE: “I think people are going into it thinking this will be a funny Rough life. comedy, but on top of it, it has like real heart and you actually care DEVINE: “Yeah it was a tough summer.” about these characters. And the screenings I’ve been to you see, like when my character is kind of down on his luck, and he’s getting sad and Were you guys able to go off script? you hear, ‘awww,’ like poor guy. And that’s because Jake Szymanski, EFRON: “Well, we would always go in with a script in mind and then our director, did such a great job building each scene, and each scene once, I’d say somewhere around day three, we just kind of threw builds, and builds. By the time you get to that point you are like, ‘I care it out the window and Jake would kind of just throw us [alternative about these guys.’” versions] and we knew the goal and the direction of the scene, and we would just go for it.” Melissa Sheasgreen is a content producer for Cineplex Entertainment.

24 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016

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READY TO HIT WAR P SPEED? STAR TREK BEYOND HITS THEATRES JULY 22ND

hris Pine boldly leads the U.S.S. Enterprise crew to a place they hopefully haven’t gone before in Star Trek Beyond, the third outing of the rebooted movie and TV…well, enterprise. This time there’s a new skipper behind READY TO HIT the scenes, too, as the director of 2009’s Star Trek and its 2013 sequel Into Darkness, J.J. Abrams, jumped ship to helm the revival of an even more legendary space-opera franchise with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That left Beyond’s warp drive in idle for a bit, until the man who made four Fast and Furious films, Just Lin, took the com. “Justin had a hard gig, man,” Pine notes in a hotel just off L.A.’s famed Sunset Strip. “He came in at the very last minute to take over what is a behemoth task of making a giant studio tent-pole film with WAR P Star Trek. “But with Justin’s incredible sense of camera movement, incredible sense of story, his sense of action obviously, I think we’re going to have something more akin to the first film,” reckons the 35-year-old, third- generation Hollywood actor. “It’s fun, it tackles really big themes but in a way that I think we always do best, which is what I feel will appeal to the fans of old and hopefully invite new fans in.” Beyond’s arrival comes in the 50th anniversary year of creator SPEED? Gene Roddenberry’s ground- and barrier-breaking sci-fi show’s If you thought the first two films television debut. It’s also the first Trek to be released since the 2015 of the Star Trek reboot were death of beloved, original Mr. Spock portrayer Leonard Nimoy (last seen on screen in Into Darkness), which can’t help but cast a bit of a fast-paced, imagine exploring pall on the golden celebration. space with Justin Lin, director Shot primarily in British Columbia last year, Beyond underwent of four Fast and Furious movies, some substantial reshooting in March. And of course there is concern at the helm. Star Chris Pine that Lin’s predilection for supercharged action over plot plausibility gives us a peek under the hood may not be the right sensibility for a series that, from the start, gave intellectual, emotional and political depth as much weight as special of the franchise’s latest offering, effects, often more. Star Trek Beyond n BY BOB STRAUSS Pine assures, however, that Beyond’s script — in which the Enterprise is wrecked midway into its first five-year mission, and its captain must ensure Spock (Zachary Quinto), Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Sulu (John Cho) and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin) survive on a very strange planet — fully grounds the story in Trek tradition. “Doug Jung and Simon Pegg took over writing duties, and it was a great combination,” the actor says. “Simon knows us all so well and, obviously, comedy is his forte [Pegg has written such self- starring laughers as Shaun of the Dead and The World’s End]. My favourite part of the series has always been the comedy, where our tone can go broad and fun. Though obviously not as broad as, say, Guardians of the Galaxy nor as self-referential as the other Marvel movies, but our own brand of kind of ’80s pop sensibility, which J.J. did really well and I think Simon has internalized and knows like the back of his hand. “Combine that with Doug, who we all got very close with and who was very amenable to CONTINUED

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 29 Go to CINEPLEX.COM/ FAVECHRISES for our favourite actors named Chris

Chris Pine (left) with director Justin Lin on the set of Star Trek Beyond

“With Justin’s incredible sense of camera movement, incredible sense of story, his sense of action obviously, I think we’re going to have Simon Pegg with something more akin to the Sofia Boutella first film” in Star Trek Beyond TO BOLDLY GO… our suggestions and take on things, and I think we have a story TO SCOTIABANK that’s 50 years of Star Trek-worthy.” THEATRE Pine tries a new take on another kind of pop-culture institution next month in the modern-day Western Hell or High Water, in which VANCOUVER he and Ben Foster play bank-robbing brothers in the crosshairs of Aside from playing Scotty for the third time, Scottish Jeff Bridges’ soon-to-be-retiring Texas Ranger. actor/writer Simon Pegg also co-wrote the script for And next year Pine will be Steve Trevor in the first big-screen the- Star Trek Beyond. He was in Las Vegas for CinemaCon atrical feature about one of the most iconic pop-culture figures of the when we asked him about shooting parts of the film past 75 years, Wonder Woman. in Vancouver. As the love interest of the super-powered Amazonian princess, “Most of it was shot in Vancouver,” he exclaims. played by Israeli actor Gal Gadot and introduced several months “I still have my Cineplex app on my phone which ago in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Pine will play an early I used to go and play the little game [Cineplex TimePlay] 20th-century American male confronted by female power on a scale before the film started because when you’re filming in a to which, at the very least, he is unaccustomed. city and you have a lot of time on your hands, you know, “Gal is killing it and creating a fierce but really beautifully vulner- I was always down at the Scotiabank watching movies. able Wonder Woman who I think fans will adore,” Pine reports. “And we took over Vancouver. It became quite a usual “To put it really simply, I’m playing Steve as a man in any generation sight to see the crew of the Enterprise in some restaurant faced with encountering a woman of such incredible, incredible on Robson or something…. It was such a welcoming physical prowess and ability who’s seemingly not of this world. It’s place. The crews there are fantastic and it was a really, just a matter of playing that reality, set in a time when women were really wonderful time because we were all away from thought of as ‘less than.’ That’s the reality I’m working with.” home, of course, so we got to spend more time with Talk about where no man has gone before. Beyond indeed. each other as friends as well. “So we will always have Vancouver.” Bob Strauss lives in L.A. where he writes about movies and filmmakers.

30 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016

BOURNE AGAIN Nine years after Matt Damon last played Jason Bourne, the actor returns for his fourth turn as the amnesiac super-soldier. Only now Bourne remembers everything. And he wants answers. Here Damon explains why it was finally time to revisit his most famous action hero n BY COLIN COVERT

32 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016 JASON BOURNE BOURNE HITS THEATRES JULY 29TH

AGAIN hy would he come back The original Bourne trilogy introduced a gritty now?” look and feel that lifted the genre from pure escapism So asks Tommy Lee Jones’ to unprecedented heights of tension. Bourne films stern CIA chief about the sur- were Bond films really, really taking themselves prise return of Jason Bourne, seriously. Battling amnesia from the brainwashing the tough-as-nails rogue field that made him an international assassin, Bourne agent played by Matt Damon. was like James Bond if he hated being 007, and M After three films where the was the villain. fugitive agent couldn’t be intercepted, followed by Without fancy gadgets from Q, Bourne improvised a decade spent off the grid (and movie screens), he’s his deadly weapons from everyday materials, back for the aptly titled Jason Bourne. destroying enemies with hardcover books, ballpoint Why would he come back now? Damon, director pens, lamp cords and bathroom towels. Paul Greengrass, Universal Studios and a huge The role boosted Damon’s appeal hugely, and fanbase simply wanted to see Bourne born again. globally, and he happily returned for two sequels, Before Damon played Jason Bourne in director 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy and then 2007’s Doug Liman’s 2002 franchise kickoff The Bourne The Bourne Ultimatum. Identity, his career largely consisted of sensitive The stories were a natural fit for Damon, one dramatic parts or supporting comic roles. Few of them of Hollywood’s most outspoken liberals, because showcased the Oscar-winning skills he displayed as aside from being action movies they tapped into the co-writer and star of 1997’s Good Will Hunting. fears we have about the spy industry infringing on Transforming into an elite fighting machine our civil liberties. A deceitful guy wearing a tie and showed Damon could be a master of intense action sitting behind a desk is the agent’s greatest threat. sequences too. He has described the character as a “The first three movies were kind of about the sort of ninja ordinary Joe — a poker-faced good guy Bush presidency in a way,” Damon says. Bourne who kills people when necessary but keeps a sense was a post-9/11 character being controlled by grim of decency about him. Washington, D.C., bureaucrats playing Cold War “It appealed to me on an intuitive level because it chess with human pawns. His battles were fresher, wasn’t like anything I had done before,” Damon says leaner and faster than any spy thriller in years, but over the phone from Los Angeles. “I’ve played some they were founded on realism, Damon says, operat- villains in my time but I think I get cast as an Everyman ing “in that world of absence of habeas corpus, and a lot. Those guys tend to be the protagonist.” waterboarding.” Damon was already quite familiar with author We haven’t seen Damon as Jason Bourne since Robert Ludlum’s bestselling thrillers when the he and Greengrass, who helmed Ultimatum and project came up. Supremacy, walked away after the third film, in “I’d been a fan of the books when I was a kid and which Bourne regained his memory. In a franchise- Doug Liman just came to me with the idea. At the focused industry where actors are often contracted time he said, ‘Look, I don’t relate to James Bond and to appear in multiple movies over many years, I think there’s a real vacuum there. There’s room for Damon only signed up for one Bourne film at a time. a character for our generation. Kind of a spy for our “We kind of had to wait for the world to change a generation.’ Then I read the script and I loved it. And little bit before bringing him back,” Damon says. “We really that was that,” he says. would talk and revisit it every couple CONTINUED

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 33 DID YOU KNOW? Before Matt Damon brought Jason Bourne to the big screen, Richard Chamberlain took a shot at the amnesiac secret agent in a 1988 TV miniseries based on Robert Ludlum’s novel. And, yup, that’s Charlie’s Angels star Jaclyn Smith as Marie, Franka Potente’s role in the 2002 movie. Go to CINEPLEX.COM/ TOPDAMON for Matt Damon’s Matt Damon and Julia Stiles are best performances back together in Jason Bourne

of years. We’d talk about whether there was a story to tell, was there a way to approach it that would be interesting enough for us to want to do it.” The Bourne franchise was on the cusp of supplanting James Bond as the new spy franchise of record until Casino Royale copied its grittier tone in 2006 and reinvigorated 007. Bourne waited at the side of the road, parked in neutral, while Damon took an eclectic array of roles for a spin. He played a cowboy buffoon with a romantic streak in True Grit, flaunted a feathered Farrah Fawcett hairdo as Liberace’s lover in Behind the Candelabra and squeezed into space suits as abandoned astronauts in both Interstellar and The Martian. Meanwhile, Greengrass turned his lens to real-world-based international conflicts in Green Zone and Captain Phillips, and Universal tried to launch a sideline spinoff anointing Jeremy Renner, ever the promising newcomer, as a new action star. The result, 2012’s with financial issues of its own. The Bourne Legacy, grossed a good but not great $276-million (U.S.) “By the time we got to shooting we were pretty confident in the worldwide (compared with Ultimatum’s $443-million.) story we were telling. I feel like it’s really important to put this out in the Then, thank heavens, Jason Bourne arrived. world,” he says. “It’s got a really important message. Particularly with “I always said I’d be ready to do another one if Paul wanted to do it,” a presidential election coming up and everybody trying to divide us.” Damon says. “It just took us years to decide that we wanted to. That With Damon and Greengrass back in the fold the saga seems to there was something to state with the character, you know? have gotten back on track, and Damon, unfailingly polite, offers best “Now I feel it’s kind of a post-Snowden world and what does that wishes for his spy film’s biggest competitor. character have to say?” “The Bond franchise?” he muses. “Hopefully we can be as successful Damon says the new film opens with a nighttime riot in destitute, as them with our next one.” austerity-ridden Greece, the birthplace of democracy, and climaxes with a high-speed nighttime smashup in upscale Las Vegas, a city Colin Covert is a film journalist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

34 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016

Bad Moms’ unruly stars, from left: Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn

MomsGone

WILDristen Bell was nervous. She’s bubbly. She’s likeable. “I think we all went in going, ‘Oh And, most importantly, she’s boy, we got six leading ladies, buckle up!’” funny. It’s no wonder we Bell is referring to the six actors — herself, see Kristen Bell pop up in Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn, Annie Mumolo, comedy after comedy. Here and she talks about wringing — who play the moms, both “good” and laughs from the pressures “bad,” who face off in the raucous of parenthood in Bad Moms comedy Bad Moms. n BY INGRID RANDOJA “But everyone was so happy to be there, nobody had a bad attitude, everybody was nice,” says Bell on the line from New York City. “And we were very giggly because the material we were working on was pretty perverted, which not a lot of us get to do very often, and those are the scenes that make you gut laugh.” Bell, Kunis and Hahn play three overwhelmed mothers who can’t keep up with their kids’ schedules and the overbearing demands of three seemingly perfect PTA moms — Mumolo, Pinkett Smith and Applegate. The pressure builds until the stressed-out mothers let loose and indulge in some very un-mom-like behaviour. CONTINUED

36 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016

BAD MOMS HITS THEATRES JULY 29TH

Quiet down in front! From left: Bell, Kunis and Hahn let loose at the movies

“I don’t always have she says with a laugh, “and I just choose not to PREPARED beat myself up when I don’t have things perfect at the time to arrange home. I don’t always have time to arrange the kids’ FOR THE JOB the kids’ food into food into little cute creatures, sometimes you just All six stars of Bad Moms slap it on the plate and say, ‘Eat, we gotta go.’” are also moms off-screen. little cute creatures, Bell is in New York doing press for her upcom- Here’s a look at their broods ing TV show The Good Place, about a not-so-nice sometimes you KRISTEN BELL AND ACTOR/ just slap it on the woman who is mistakenly sent to heaven and HUSBAND DAX SHEPARD works hard not to get sent back down to Earth. It’s Daughter Lincoln (age three) plate and say, just the latest comedic effort from the 35-year-old Daughter Delta (age 19 star who is embracing her natural talent for months) ‘Eat, we gotta go’” making people laugh. “It really is instinctual,” she says. “I feel if I don’t MILA KUNIS AND ACTOR/ HUSBAND ASHTON KUTCHER know it immediately, if I read it and don’t think Daughter Wyatt “These moms band together at their school and I can deliver that joke, then I’m not really sure (age 21 months) buck the system a little bit against the PTA moms how to do it. It’s hard if you can’t see it, but most of and say, ‘We may do it differently, but all types of the material I’ve tackled has been instinctual and KATHRYN HAHN AND ACTOR/ parenting can work.’” I just know. HUSBAND ETHAN SANDLER Bell believes the cast was chosen very carefully. “But it’s interesting, as I grew older I recognized Son Leonard (age nine) “I could personally relate to the feelings of want- that not everybody can do every part,” she notes. Daughter Mae (age seven) ing to raise your kid right, not wanting to mess up, “I had a hunger and a desire to work so badly JADA PINKETT SMITH and how impossible it can feel at times,” she says, when I was young that I thought I could play AND ACTOR/HUSBAND “and I think that’s why they hired all these actresses absolutely every role. Then I realized there are WILL SMITH who are all moms, I think they wanted everyone to certain intangibles about your personality that Son Trey (age 23) have a personal connection to the material.” come through. I know one of mine is that I am Son Jaden (age 18) Bell, who is married to actor Dax Shepard, is not intimidating. I am small and bubbly and Daughter Willow (age 15) the mother of two girls: three-year-old Lincoln have a likeable quality, so it’s particularly funny CHRISTINA APPLEGATE and 19-month-old Delta. She says that, although when you see me being nasty. Comedy comes in AND MUSICIAN/HUSBAND Bad Moms is funny, it also highlights the more oppositions, and so maybe I wouldn’t be the best MARTYN LENOBLE serious notion that parents, especially mothers, for every part, and as I got older I was okay with Daughter Sadie (age five) should not expect to be perfect, nor should they that. I didn’t have to have jealousy or envy about ANNIE MUMOLO judge themselves too harshly. someone else getting the role.” AND ACTOR/HUSBAND “With social media we see an edited, perfect TIM LOVESTEDT version of what parenting looks like. I am not too Ingrid Randoja is the deputy editor of Two kids (no names, genders insecure when it comes to my own parenting,” Cineplex Magazine. or ages have been reported)

38 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016

They Ain’t Afraid of NO GHOSTS

Meet the new Ghostbusters, from left: Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Leslie Jones There are many things the cast of the new Ghostbusters ain’t afraid of. The supernatural entities invading New York. The ghosts of the They Ain’t Afraid of franchise’s past that loom as large as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Even the swarms of male naysayers who don’t want to see four women take over ghost-busting duties. Lead buster Melissa McCarthy explains why there’s no need to be scared n BY BOB STRAUSS

ans have been clamouring for a third Ghostbusters NO GHOSTS movie for more than a quarter century. Now they’re finally getting it, a reboot simply called Ghostbusters like the first, 1984 supernatural comedy blockbuster. But there are those who, before seeing a frame, have convinced themselves they won’t like it. There’s just no pleasing some people. Or perhaps, more specifically, it’s hard to get certain aging fanboys past their nostalgia-addled prejudices to accept the potentially brilliant idea that, instead of a bunch of geeky male parapsy- chologists combating an ectoplasmic attack on New York City, this time it’s a team of nerdy women strapping on the proton packs. “For me, I’m just like, eh, we’re only rebooting that story,” notes one of the new Ghostbusters, Melissa McCarthy. “To me, it’s just like if men were rebooting it. It’s not like we’re walking around talking about, ‘We’re gonna get ghosts with lipstick in our high heels!’ We’re still just scientists.” McCarthy’s Abby Yates leads a Murderers’ Row of contemporary comic geniuses — her Bridesmaids co-star Kristen Wiig and current Saturday Night Live standouts Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones — against the slime-spewing threat coming up from Manhattan’s subways. Although the quartet roughly mirrors the group originally played by Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, the late Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson — with Chris Hemsworth’s hot receptionist as a sex role-reversed combination of the Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver characters — McCarthy wants to assure fans that no one’s trying to do Dr. Peter Venkman or Egon Spengler with makeup. “We’re completely new characters,” she says during a Los Angeles interview. “I’m not the female equivalent of Dan Aykroyd or Bill Murray. Totally new characters.” Canadian comedy icon and the director of the first two films, Ivan Reitman, spent decades trying to get the band back together following 1989’s Ghostbusters II but met roadblock after roadblock, primarily due to Murray’s dissatisfaction with proposed storylines. The franchise’s reins were eventually turned over to writer/director Paul Feig while Reitman remained on as a producer of the new Ghostbusters. Murray, Aykroyd and other surviving original cast members reportedly make cameo appearances. Having guided McCarthy and other funny women through such hits as Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy, Feig — with the help of co-writer Katie Dippold — made sure the new Ghostbusters script respected the feminine point-of-view no matter how much its heroines got slimed. “The fact that we’re women does put a different spin on it, sure,” McCarthy acknowledges. “But it’s not like we’re now going, ‘Thank God we’ve got these curling irons and eyelash curlers!’ I think people should know from the movies that Paul Feig makes that that’s not the agenda. He writes good characters, he writes real people and he writes people in unusual circumstances. It’s still the same heroic story of four unlikely people saving New York City.” CONTINUED

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 41 GHOSTBUSTERS HITS THEATRES JULY 15TH

Go to CINEPLEX.COM/ MCCARTHYMOMENTS WHAT A SAINT The Ghostbusters get busy for the top times Melissa McCarthy’s movie career has taken off largely Melissa McCarthy made us laugh out loud because, despite that cherubic face, this woman is able to launch into raunchy tirades that would make For McCarthy, the chance to be a Ghostbuster was a dream all Andrew Dice Clay blush. around. But her Ghostbusters character, Abby Yates, seems “For sure I was a fan of the original,” she says. “And this one was a more in line with McCarthy’s softer, sweeter TV roles, blast to shoot. I love those women, I love Paul, I loved everything about like loving wife Molly of Mike & Molly, and klutzy, it and I think people are going to be really excited to see it.” kindhearted chef Sookie St. James (pictured above) Although she’s working more frequently now with her director/ of TV’s Gilmore Girls. husband Ben Falcone (The Boss, Tammy), McCarthy was eager to go a Sookie was such a beloved part of the show that fourth round with Feig, who directed her to a Supporting Actress Oscar word McCarthy wouldn’t return for Gilmore Girls’ nomination in Bridesmaids. four-episode Netflix revival made it feel like there “I always talk about Paul saying ‘Dealer’s choice! Dealer’s choice!’” was a Roquefort puff-shaped hole in the project. she notes. “He wants you to do what you want to do before we do the Fortunately, in April, McCarthy announced during scripted version. If you have an idea, he’s like, ‘Don’t even tell me, just an appearance on Ellen that Gilmore Girls creator do it.’ He hires the people that are right and trusts them, then lets them Amy Sherman-Palladino had indeed found a way to rip with it.” squeeze her into the filming schedule, adding, “I’m That includes Jones, whose character, subway worker Patty Tolan, very happy to go back to Stars Hollow.” was criticized for appearing to be an African American stereotype Huzzah, as shopkeeper and Town Selectman and the only non-intellectual Ghostbuster when the film’s polarizing Taylor Doose would say. Or should have, if he never did. trailer dropped in March. Gilmore Girls: Seasons is expected to hit Netflix “Leslie’s the fish out of water, she knows the city better than we do later this year. —MW and she knows the underground stuff, which is crucial,” McCarthy explains. “It’s still four unlikely heroes.” Regardless of the controversies it’s triggered, Ghostbusters marks “It was, certainly, working with the nicest group of people in the the biggest film yet in McCarthy’s own, somewhat unlikely rise to world,” she says of Mike & Molly’s cast and crew. “We had a very weird Hollywood superstardom. thing where, the day we all met we felt like we had been together for Raised on a farm outside of , McCarthy, now 45, began 10 years. Our kids were always on set, it was a total family atmosphere her improv career in New York while also studying at the prestigious and I miss it.” Actors Studio. In the late 1990s she moved to Los Angeles and joined The movies McCarthy makes these days are hardly family-friendly; the seminal live comedy troupe The Groundlings (where she met horror hybrid Ghostbusters may, ironically, be her most appropriate her husband), then made her first television appearance on cousin comedy for the younger set in years. But it’s largely the raunchiness Jenny McCarthy’s self-titled show. she applies to her do-or-say-anything movie characters that’s made The regular role of Sookie St. James on TV’s Gilmore Girls gave her Hollywood’s most bankable female actor. glimpses of the sweet and sometimes severely salty comic persona Appreciate that, fanboys. McCarthy would eventually grow into a powerful signature brand. In “Apparently I was, like, a drunk sailor in a previous life,” McCarthy 2010 the six-season run of Mike & Molly, in which she and Billy Gardell jokes. “There is a freedom to how loose and how open those movie sets starred as lonely, overweight Chicagoans who fall in love, began. are. When you’re really, really allowed to do it, you can go as far as you Bridesmaids’ success launched McCarthy’s film career into the possibly can. So I have no self-stoppers, I feel okay to try anything.” stratosphere less than a year later, but she kept playing the Emmy- winning role of Molly Flynn until the show’s final episode this spring. Bob Strauss lives in L.A. where he writes about movies and filmmakers.

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CASTING CALL n BY INGRID RANDOJA

WILL CRANSTON HIT JACKPOT? Bryan Cranston is circling the remake of the Norwegian action comedy Jackpot, about a man who mysteriously wakes up in a strip club, holding a gun and GARFIELD’S LAKE TRIP surrounded by dead bodies. Andrew Garfield is joining Dakota Johnson for the crime thriller Under the Silver Lake set The original film is based in modern-day Los Angeles. Director David Robert Mitchell, who creeped out audiences on a story by famed crime IMAGE.NET JOHN PHILLIPS GETTY FOR BY PHOTO with his indie horror movie It Follows, is keeping the plot under wraps, but shooting gets writer Jo Nesbo. Will Gluck underway later this summer. (Annie) directs.

WHAT’S GOING ON WITH... THOR: RAGNAROK A stellar cast is busy filming the third Thor pic, Thor: Ragnarok, under the watchful eye of director Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows) in Australia. Series mainstays Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston and Idris Elba are joined by newcomers Cate Blanchett as the villain Hela, Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster, Karl Urban as Skurge the Executioner and Tessa Thompson who replaces

PHOTO BY JOHN PHILLIPS/GETTY FOR IMAGE.NET FOR JOHN PHILLIPS/GETTY BY PHOTO Natalie Portman as Thor’s new love interest. And look for big green guy Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to make an appearance. Thor: Ragnarok hits MOSS screens November 3rd, 2017. SQUARES UP Filming is underway on The Square, which stars Elisabeth Moss as a reporter covering a controversial art exhibit that shakes up society. The dark dramedy is directed by rising Swedish helmer Ruben Ostlund (Force Majeure).

44 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | JULY 2016 PHOTO BY PAUL ZIMMERMAN/GETTY PAUL BY PHOTO

MYERS IS BACK! Mike Myers’ last feature film role was in 2009’s Inglourious Basterds, but the Canadian funnyman is finally returning to the big screen in the thriller Terminal, which stars Margot Robbie as a mysterious woman who makes life difficult for a pair of hit men (Max Irons, Dexter Fletcher). We don’t know what character Myers plays, but we do know he’s been cast alongside the equally amusing Simon Pegg. JOHNSON IS JANSON Universal Pictures can’t get enough of late spy novelist Robert Ludlum’s creations. His forgetful spy Jason Bourne has his own successful film franchise starring Matt Damon, and now Dwayne Johnson is officially on board to play Paul Janson in The Janson Directive. Janson is an FRESH FACE ex-superspy who’s hired to rescue a kidnapped billionaire, but the plan fails and he’s forced to run for his life. There are four Janson books so

ELLA PURNELL Johnson could be beating up bad guys on screen for years to come. IMAGE.NET FOR GRANT/GETTY JESSE BY PHOTO You may recognize Ella Purnell as the younger version of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. The 19-year-old portrayed the young Keira Knightley in Never Let Me Go, the young Angelina Jolie in Maleficent ALSO IN THE WORKS Oscar Isaac plays a murdered and this month she’s the young Jane man who leaves behind a trove of videos that point to his killers in A Foreigner. (Margot Robbie) in The Legend of Tarzan. The Bookshop casts Emily Mortimer as a woman who opens a bookstore She does, however, lay claim to her in a sleepy, 1950s English seaside town. Milla Jovovich portrays a drug lord very own character, Emma Bloom, in director James Franco’s post-apocalyptic drama Future World. the love interest of Jacob Portman Eddie Redmayne lends his voice to Early Man, Aardman Animation’s latest (Asa Butterfield) in the upcoming stop-motion pic. It’s about a tribe of caveman who invent soccer.

PHOTO BY DAVID M. BENETT/GETTY FOR IMAGE.NET FOR M. BENETT/GETTY DAVID BY PHOTO Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

JULY 2016 | CINEPLEX MAGAZINE | 45 RETURN ENGAGEMENT

Finding

Her“My leading men had been dogs and horses.” ambitious, Place but poor, young man who is already A PLACE That’s Elizabeth Taylor referring to her engaged to pregnant factory worker Alice Tripp IN THE SUN various co-stars up until she was cast opposite (Shelley Winters). Desperate to get rid of screens as part Montgomery Clift in director George Stevens’ Alice, George resorts to extreme measures. of Cineplex’s Classic 1951 melodrama A Place in the Sun. Although still a teenager, Taylor exudes Film Series on July 10th, Taylor, the child star of MGM films such a worldly sexuality that is unsettling for 20th and 25th. Go to as Lassie Come Home and National Velvet, one so young, but she would mature into Cineplex.com/Events was just 17 when Stevens asked her to play and harness that magnetic sex appeal, for times and Angela Vickers, the wealthy socialite who and emerge as one of Hollywood’s most locations. falls in love with George Eastman (Clift), an celebrated stars. —INGRID RANDOJA

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The Month’s Best CINEPLEX STORE Home Entertainment

BARBERSHOP: THE NEXT CUT RENT IT JULY 5 Barbershop owner Calvin THE BOSS (Ice Cube) has seen his RENT IT JULY 5 Chicago neighbourhood Melissa McCarthy once again change from family-friendly shows off her slapstick skills to gang-friendly, and playing disgraced business sets out to clean up his tycoon Michelle Darnell, who community. Co-starring moves in with her former Cedric the Entertainer, personal assistant (Kristen Bell) Nicki Minaj and Common. and starts a take-no-prisoners brownie business. KEANU RENT IT JULY 12 ALLEGIANT The wry, socially conscious RENT IT JULY 12 humour of comedy duo Jordan The third film in the Peele and Keegan-Michael Key Divergent series finds anchors this action-packed Tris (Shailene Woodley) romp that sees straight-laced and Four (Theo James) cousins Rell and Clarence escaping Chicago teaming up with gangstas to and taking refuge at rescue their stolen cat Keanu. the Bureau of Genetic EVERYBODY Warfare. The bureau’s WANTS SOME!! leader (Jeff Daniels) RENT IT JULY 12 promises he’ll help Boyhood director Richard stop the various Linklater returns to his factions in fun-loving filmmaking roots Chicago from with this college sports pic going to war BONUS set in the 1980s that stars with one SCENE POINTS! Blake Jenner as freshman another. Get 500 bonus SCENE points with the baseball pitcher Jake, who But can our purchase of Allegiant at moves into a house with his heroes trust Cineplex.com/Store. raucous teammates and gets him? an education in partying. BUY OR RENT MOVIES AT CINEPLEX.COM/STORE WATCH ANYWHERE: Download or stream movies using a variety of devices, including Xbox 360, Roku, Android, iOS, Windows, and LG and Samsung Smart TVs.

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FINALLY... PHOTO BY KEVIN WINTER/GETTY BY PHOTO

SKIN IN lexander Skarsgård may not be the first actor you’d think of for the role of Tarzan. He’s blond; in THE GAME Edgar Rice Burroughs’ book Tarzan had long black hair. He’s Swedish; Tarzan was the son of a British lord. But even if Skarsgård — who plays the king of the jungle in The Legend of Tarzan — isn’t perfect for the role at first glance, the role is perfect for him. That’s because he’s really comfortable with his clothes off. Here he is, clockwise from top left, in The Legend of Tarzan, presenting alongside Samuel L. Jackson at this year’s MTV Movie Awards, on TV’s True Blood, in 2012’s Disconnect, in 2011’s Straw Dogs, and (centre inset) on a Rolling Stone cover promoting True Blood. —MARNI WEISZ THE LEGEND OF TARZAN HITS THEATRES JULY 1ST

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